


Hour of the Wolf

by WorldofBubbles



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Little Red Riding Hood Fusion, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Enemies to Lovers, Fast burn?, Good thing forest and Force sound so similar, Humans are the REAL Monsters Life Lessons, Luke is both Grandmother and Huntsman, Never Meet Your Heroes, No Full Redemption, Rating May Change, Rey (Star Wars) is Nobody, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars: The Last Jedi References, Strong Princess Mononoke with slight Witcher vibes?, Was I inspired by LOK season 2 when baby Korra is in the spirit world? Maybe, Werewolf!Kylo, Werewolves, foxy!Hux, when a Porn with Plot pretty much becomes all plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26437267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorldofBubbles/pseuds/WorldofBubbles
Summary: Humans have warred with the dark forest for centuries. As the Ilenium Settlement is besieged by the sorcerer Snoke and his pet Kylo Ren, a girl in a bloodied cloak appears at Luke Skywalker’s door in search of aid. With the hope of becoming the first Hunter in a generation, Rey is forced to learn that some wolves hide mortal faces and not all heroes can live up to their legends. Red Riding Hood AU.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> "The hour between night and dawn ... when most people die, sleep is deepest, nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their worst anguish, when ghosts and demons are most powerful." - Ingmar Bergman

“Come on!” Rey urges, reworking her grip cupping Finn at his waist. “We’re almost there!”

 _Lies._ He must know it too.

Finn’s blood drips across her fingers but she forces the rising panic back down her throat. Now is not the time for her to descend into the madness. A clear head is the only way forward.

Rey can’t be sure how she sees the clear path through all the snow and shadows and _death_ ruminating in the dark forest - wide, polished river stones leading the way back to the Ilenium Settlement – only that if she strays they will be lost to the dark forest forever.

Finn can only groan in protest. “Han. We have to go back for—”

“Han is dead,” she retorts, as much as the truth tears her heart in two. “It’s just us now.” She had seen him take his last breath, the contrast of his red blood – nearly black in the moonlight – against the white landscape. A reminder of the fate awaiting them if they fail to escape this godforsaken place.

A howl breaks through the chilly night, much closer than Rey had expected it to be. A reminder of Han Solo’s body lying in the cold, speared through by the same dagger-like claws that had torn Finn’s back to shreds.

“And Chewie?” he asks, still holding onto the shred of hope that Rey has long abandoned.

“Gone,” she tells him. Han’s bloodhound had been their only hope of making it back home in one piece. Now, stone-lined path or otherwise, they seem like rabbits running on borrowed time.

Finn struggles against her. “Keep going. One of us can make it to the Settlement and we both know it won’t be me.”

“Don’t say that!” she snaps. “We’ll—”

A shadow smashes into them. Her hands slip as she struggles to right herself. “Finn!”

Her friend stumbles into the snowbank. A loud crack and he doesn’t get back up. There’s no time to go to him, however, and coax him back on his feet. A towering figure stands several paces before her, red eyes glaring at Rey through the mist.

 _“We’re not done yet.”_ The monster pads forward into the moonlight, massive body seemingly takes up the entire clearing. Blood drips from a bite wound on his side, sizzling as it hits the snow.

With nothing but desperation filling her, Rey grips the scabbard hung on her belt and pulls Han’s weapon free.

His long snout wrinkles back into a sneer. “ _That sword belongs to me.”_

Rey has no time to contemplate the gravity of those words now that the opportunity to lure Kylo Ren away from Finn has presented itself. She twists it in her hand, testing its weight for the first time. Almost taunting. “Come and get it.”

Ren rushes forward.

She parries the strike, recalling all the moments in Han’s forge she’d swung similarly balanced swords against invisible opponents. Not that it prepared her for the weight of Kylo Ren’s body, nor the ferocity fueling his muscles despite the wound Chewie dealt him after seeing Han’s lifeless body in the frozen dirt.

Rey hits back with her own hard-earned tenacity. Perhaps the wolf hadn’t expected such resistance, as she is able to drive him back many times and, most importantly, away from the fallen Finn. Until he regains confidence.

Her blade screeches every time it bounces off his sharpened claws, a dreadful song. She dances across exposed walls of granite, Kylo Ren exploding through tree trunks, teeth snapping on air a hair away from her skull.

Rey runs still. The frost makes it hard to breathe, almost sticking to the inside of her lungs, begging her to still and desiccate like the weaker animals before her. _I will not._ Not while she still hears Kylo Ren’s thunderous pursuit behind her.

Only until she sees the tree line thin as it reaches the cliff face does Rey realize she has been herded the entire time. She spins and they come together again in a clash of claws against sword. Her back arches over the edge, desperate to keep her footing on firm ground while hundreds of pounds of muscle and sinew press down against her.

Ren flashes her a toothy grin, though she cannot be sure if it is in victory or a strange sense of pride that Rey has managed to last this long against him. His hot breath prickles her skin. “ _I could kill you right now. But there is another way.”_

Kylo Ren leans further into her, as if ready to pitch them both off the precipice. Both her arms and his haunches shake simultaneously.

He licks his teeth. _“You need a teacher. Someone to show you the ways of the forest.”_

“The forest?” she grunts, almost scornful. Certainly hesitant to throw herself into whatever game this monster is playing. But may there be truth to his words?

Briefly, Rey closes her eyes. The atmosphere behind her lacks for space, that she cannot deny, ready to send her into open air. But the ground beneath her, despite the frost, feels solid enough. Eager to stabilize her if she will let it.

She takes a deep breath, squaring her hips and straightening her back. Rey knows he can feel the air changing between them, his advantage over her shifting. Her eyes fling open with a sneer. “I’ll find my own way.”

She strikes with a renewed strength she didn’t think herself capable of. His grip slips and Ren stumbles forward. Rey flings herself away from the edge of the cliff, whipping her blade across Chewie’s wound.

Kylo Ren roars. Defensively, his teeth turn to snap in that direction, to guard his point of weakness, but she has already sidestepped. A jolting kick from Rey on his opposite site launches the monster into the snow, twisting and struggling. Her blackened fury crushes any remaining defense. Her blade slices through air and flesh, across Kylo Ren’s neck and face.

Rey poises the sword for a final downward strike. It would be too easy, too quick to end the monster here. Kill him as he had killed Han Solo.

Kylo Ren knows it too, awaiting his demise with bated breath. Their eyes lock. Rey knows she should look away, swallow any feelings of mercy and get on with it. But his gaze easily reflects the emotions swarming within her – pure vengeful rage, curiosity and… _something else_. 

Rey does not move as his bones crunch in an oddly satisfying way, and black fur recedes to take on a new shape. A _human_ shape.

She does not anticipate a pale, narrow face staring back at her. So reminiscent of any other face she might see wandering around the Ilenium Settlement. Handsome, albeit in an unusual way.

“Do it,” he whispers, his voice startlingly gentle. Ren props himself up an elbow and only then does she realize, with wide eyes, that he is completely nude. _Vulnerable._

Rey recoils. She takes a step back, throwing the sword back into its scabbard.

The monster – the _man –_ rears his head at her hesitation. Rey takes several more steps back, right off the edge of the cliff.

* * *

Rey wakes with blood against her teeth and a wound on her tongue from where she’d bitten it. Treetops tower over her, reaching for the foggy skyline. Without a way of gauging how long she’s been out, it could be sunrise for all she knows. Or the dead of night.

She isn’t safe here either way.

Rey sits up, head pounding. She struggles to her feet, feeling the ache in her bones. She spots a break in the trees pressed up against the cliff face, no doubt the spot she had stumbled off of, leaving a hole in the canopy where branches had broken her fall.

Her wrist aches but, with no debilitating injuries in her legs, she gets to her feet and plunges on through the forest. The quicker she can find Finn again, the better.

Not that Rey can recall any of her surroundings. Much of her life had been spent on the streets of the Settlement stealing food from vendors. She was caught, naturally, but Leia Organa had spared her from the harshest of punishments, taken her in and put her to work in the forge.

Han, as forgemaster, had not been an easy man to please with his usual gruff demeanor, requiring near-perfect casts and long hours in the dead of night. Not necessarily amenable for long excursions into the forest despite Leia’s insistence. Not that Kylo Ren’s monthly attacks made such a thing appealing either.

Her ears prick to the sound of water bubbling. She finds a half-frozen brook, serene in its simplicity despite existing within the center of hell. Rey stumbles at the bank, her cupped fingers aching to steal a drink.

The water numbs her lips, running so cold down her throat it almost burns. She can’t stop, so thirsty that three handfuls nearly drown her.

Rey pauses to catch her breath. She tips her head up at the trees, only a single thought slicing right through the fog. _I’m in over my head._

Rey thought she had faced that realization when she left with Han and Finn. All of them holding onto the faint hope that they could somehow track down Luke with the crudely drawn map he’d left behind for Leia. Now it hits her full force.

 _Lost,_ like all the humans that came before her. The dark forest will chew her up and spit her out just as it did to them—

 _No._ Rey stands. _I’ll never get anywhere like that._ Besides, Leia’s tutelage did not teach her to be a quitter.

Her eyes scan the tree line in search of some way out. The path to the Settlement does not stretch this far deep but if she can find another path to orient herself…

Some old forest god must be looking to her with pity. A few moments later, Rey spots canid tracks lightly pressed into the snow. She can tell by the shape of its pad marks, an echo of some basic lesson given to her in Leia’s voice. Too small to belong to that of a wolf, which gives her such tremendous relief. If she follows them…

Well, she has already strayed far from all senses of civilization. What are a few more miles? And if somehow her hunch is correct, if somehow they belong to Chewie, then Rey has no choice.

The tracks trail parallel to the brook. Rey follows them dutifully, eyes pinned to the ground, desperate to ignore the various creaks and moans of the forest sending shivers down her spine. She needn’t be reminded of just how unwelcomed she is, a human trespassing through this hostile space.

The sound of the brook grows louder, now a wide stream encircling an enormous tree. A dozen men would have to band together to put their arms around the trunk. Despite its enormous branches blocking off light from the upper canopy, the leaves still shimmer with an unnatural glow that warms her insides.

Rey swears she sees windows carved into the bark, candles flickering on the sills. She blinks, wondering if her wounds have made her delirious and this is just a hallucination. It isn’t.

A string tugs at her gut, urging her forward, promising the answers she had sought not long ago. _There’s someone living in there…_

Almost panicked, she works her way through the jumble of roots. She feels sparks against her hand, as if every individual is a sentient creature welcoming her home. A beautiful sensation she has never felt before.

Rey finally reaches the tree, breathless. Her fingers trace the bark, feeling worn lines carved into the wood. _A door._ Her mind screams. She holds her breath and knocks tentatively.

A bark sounds, now music to her ears.

“Chewie?” she whispers.

The door opens with a creak.

Rey freezes once a sliver of candlelight appears across her face. The familiar face of Chewie barks again, grinning a crooked smile from ear to ear as the hound locks eyes with her. Beside him, an ominous figure shrouded in a simple gray cloak stares at her.

She knows who he is, yet any words of greeting stick in her throat like honey.

The figure pulls back his hood. Luke Skywalker.

They say nothing to each other. Her eyes can only skim across the white hairs in his twisted beard, the wrinkles like chasms in his cheeks. He is… not as old as she expected him to be.

Remembrance strikes her like a burst of lightning. She pulls the silver sword from her scabbard – still painted with Kylo Ren’s blood – and offers it hilt first to the master.

Rey bows her head.

Her heart pounds in the doorway as Rey finds herself overwhelmed with a feeling of… destiny. That she had been meant to fall through the forest canopy, meant to stray from the forest path, meant to walk up to this tree, to find _Luke Skywalker_ , of all people…

She is completely stiff, holding out the sword Leia had given her. The same sword Han had carried on his person before his untimely demise. _Luke's_ sword.

Rey says nothing, but her offer – her _plea_ – speaks volumes.

His weathered hand wraps around the hilt. She almost smiles, though decides not to ruin the sanctity of this moment.

She takes a step back, watching Luke appraise the very weapon he had slain countless monsters with to protect their village at the very edge of the dark forest. _If_ the stories can be believed, though Rey had always listened to them without fail. Now, she holds her breath, waiting for him to make his move.

Those ancient eyes flicker to hers, holding her gaze. She wills herself to stand her ground.

Unfortunately, it makes her unable to anticipate his next move. Luke tosses the saber into the tangle of tree roots.

“You can stay,” he says mildly, ignoring the shock written all over her face. “ _That_ stays outside.”

Luke ventures back inside his hut, leaving the door open behind him. Chewie still sits at the entrance, wagging his tail in pure oblivion to this recent turn of events, waiting for Rey to follow them inside.

“Master Skywalker?” Rey hesitates a moment longer before taking off after him.


	2. Dreams and Nightmares

The door creaks on rusty hinges as it shuts behind Rey, trapping the warmth of Luke’s hearth within the tree once again.

“There’s tea on the kettle,” Luke grumbles from an alcove. “Have you a concussion?”

“A what?”

He gives her a quick once over. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He plucks some dried roots and a cup from a low-hanging shelf.

Unsure of what to say or do now, Rey plops herself down on the floor of the hut within arm’s reach of the fire. Maybe half-frozen and covered in someone else’s blood was not the best way to introduce herself to _Luke Skywalker_ of all people. Maybe once she starts acting and feeling like a regular human being again, he’ll reconsider.

_Or I’m in denial._

“Here.” Luke flings a furry parka at her, admittedly much more suited to the climate than what Rey had initially worn when setting out into the dark forest. “Hope you didn’t like the color of your cloak. The red will never come out.”

She appraises her cloak before shrugging it off. In a way, she hopes he’s right. With Finn’s blood all over it, no way of knowing he’s still living, this is all she has left of him and Han and her stand against Ren.

Her eyes scan the humble abode, completely void of frivolous possessions. No mementos of his family still in the settlement, no books to keep his mind busy, no obvious cache of neat weapons she would expect a Hunter to have. A staircase trails up towards a loft where Rey suspects he hides a bed for himself – her condolences to his back if that isn’t the case.

“If you’ve sustained any other injuries, now is the time to tell me.”

Rey jumps as she finds him looming right next to her. She hadn’t expected someone of his age to move so quickly across the room. Gingerly, she takes the teacup from him.

Luke joins her on the floor with his own cup. Rey ladles tea for them both from the pot above the fire. She drinks it piping hot – a split decision, as her tongue is already wounded and she rather not make eye contact with the master sitting cross-legged across from her. Though for someone completely uninterested in her mission, Rey can sure feel his stare on her as she sips.

Though she cannot stall off the inevitable.

When Luke catches her eye, he speaks again, though not with the words she expected to hear. “How do you know Chewie?” The aforementioned bloodhound has pressed himself closer to the fire and Rey is reminded that she isn’t the only one to have had a rough night. “To be frank, he’s the only reason I let you inside.”

“Your sister Leia sent me,” she murmurs, almost in a daze. “We need help. The village—”

“Huh,” he interjects. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “It’s a long story. I can tell it on the way back to the Ilenium Settlement.”

“I don’t think so. I want to know _exactly_ how you got Chewie to follow you through the woods without Han. He doesn’t go _anywhere_ without him.”

Luke must see her resulting face of panic that he feels the need to lean in much closer. “Where’s Han?” he asks in a tone borderline accusatory.

“Han Solo is dead,” she snaps and this time it is his turn to jump. For once, the stunned Luke doesn’t have a ready quip in mind. Rey sighs. “He gave his life to save us.”

She almost feels guilty for the heavy silence that settles between them. But once again, Luke’s voice rises to fill it. “From?” he says, graver than he had been before

“Kylo Ren. He killed Han Solo.” His grimace deepens. “That’s why Leia needs you back at the village. Kylo Ren is only getting stronger – he and Snoke have the Ilenium Settlement under siege. Our cattle have been slaughtered, our crops razed. We were currently subsisting on winter stocks anyway, but she showed me our estimates before we left,” Rey rambles on, memories of blazing fires, the groans of dying cows, and red eyes surveying them from the woods all stirring to life. 

“We are months away from starvation if that sorcerer and his wolf don’t destroy us first."

The words burst out from her like a broken dam – their quest had sent them to the deepest parts of the forest in search of the infamous Luke Skywalker. They had gotten lost, naturally, before their paths crossed with Kylo Ren. Finn was injured in the ensuing battle and Han Solo stayed behind to hold the monster off… or rather, the initial fight dwindled to a standstill. The wolf had told Han something of great import, enough to freeze the forgemaster right in place, before their shared moment ended in bloodshed.

“Now will you help us? You _have_ to help us,” Rey pleads. “You’re our only hope.”

He strokes his long, gray beard. The other hand rests on Chewie’s head, rubbing smooth circles into the wrinkled skin. “No.”

“What?” _Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said?_

Luke only shakes his head. “You and my sister are misguided. I can’t help you.”

Rey jumps to her feet, awed by the implausibility of it all. “But you can! You are the greatest Huntsman to have existed in a generation. You are the _only_ one who can stop Kylo Ren.”

“No, I can’t.” Again, he fixes her with that steely gaze. “If that were true, don’t you think I would’ve stopped him long ago? Or do you think I came to the most unfindable place in the forest for no reason at all?”

Once again, Rey is forced to swallow her injured tongue.

Luke gulps down the last of his tea. “You are welcome to stay. I offer you shelter and food before you set off on your journey back home. That is as far as my generosity will extend.”

* * *

The lullaby that spurns Rey to rise before the dawn is foreign to her. She follows it, betwixt.

Chewie lifts his head to stare at her as she leaves out the door. He doesn’t follow.

Where the air in the tree is warm and dry, the outside bombards her with the same sticky, oppressive chill from the day before. But perhaps Rey’s bones have grown accustomed to it now. The numbing sensation seems nearly addictive - a far cry from the burns and sweat associated with a raging forge. 

Something mystical resonates with her in the way sunlight shines through the canopy, reflecting off a kaleidoscope of colors. She never imagined any part of the forest in the dead of winter would have so much _life._ A fairytale made reality.

Rey notices details that hadn’t been obvious to her in the night – Luke’s abode, the center tree, sits as a middle point for the clearing and its roots radiate out from there. Like a spider, she counts eight mighty limbs the width of plow horses piercing the dirt and intertwining within the thicket of vines and shrubbery. Smaller trees also tangle themselves with their ancient predecesor and she finds it hard to tell where one tree ends another begins, stretching many miles on. As if there are no individual organisms at all - only one living, breathing entity.

The whispers that led Rey out in the morning gloom now beg her to touch, to discover for herself just how far this forest stretches. She approaches a root with bated breath.

“Who are you?”

Her fingers stop short. She spots Luke blocking the doorway as he had last night, looking to her as if this is the first time. “I’ve been here before, I think. In a dream.” Sharply, she draws her hand back to her chest. “In a nightmare.”

Luke looks as troubled as he did last night, letting a stranger into his home. “And what’s so special about you?”

“Nothing," she says a little too readily, an answer that she has drilled into her head for most of her life. _Nothing at all._

“You don’t expect me to believe that,” he scoffs. “Why are you here?”

Rey feels a spike of frustration. “Leia sent me.” _Not as if I told you last night._

His skepticism remains. “She sent you? A nobody?”

“I was coming with Han…” she offers as a meager explanation.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” The words echo as remnant of the night before. He steps closer and away from the safety of the tree. “Why are _you_ here?”

Rey should be infuriated with herself for not being able to answer a simple question. She has her pride, yes, and perhaps that is what keeps her from saying _I don’t know._ Or perhaps she _does_ know and is only hesitant to give voice to it.

A tear prickles at the corner of her eyes. “Something inside me has always been there…” Han hadn’t asked her to go on this quest. She had begged him – and in turn, begged Finn to tag along – in search of adventure. A part of Rey may have understood that there was more to life than an anonymous existence within the settlement. Running through the forest, fighting Kylo Ren, finding Luke had all felt… _destined_. “And now it’s awake.”

He gives her a slight nod to continue.

“But I’m afraid,” Rey admits. “I don’t know what it is or what to do with it. And I need help.”

He clasps his hands behind his back, letting out a sigh. “I was a boy once, dreaming of far off lands outside the borders of my farm. I thought I was destined for great things too. Turns out it wasn’t as great as I thought.” Luke turns his back on her then, ready to retreat back inside his hut. “You’re looking for a teacher, Rey. I can’t teach you.”

In all the scenarios that had played in her head of this moment, this an outcome she had not envisioned. Never in a million years did Rey think the legendary Luke Skywalker would turn his back on humanity. That he would reject teaching her the ways of monster-hunting.

"Leia sent me here with hope!” Rey sneers, fists clenched tight at her sides. “If you're to stand aside and let us die, she deserves to know why!"

He peers over his shoulder with an expression that looks almost amused. "My what a big mouth you have."

"And what a small heart you have," she counters. His eyes darken and Rey knows she has gotten the rise out of him that she desired, but at what cost?

She concedes before things turn ugly, brushing on past him. "I'll go. There's a village to save and it seems I have overstayed my welcome."

Rey has a half a mind to slam the door behind her but, frankly, Chewie and the tree don’t deserve that. Nevertheless, she certainly won't hold it open for him. 

There isn’t much for her to pack. She keeps on Luke’s furry parka – it’s the least he can do, really – and tucks the silver sword back into Han’s sheath before strapping it to her belt. Rey holds her old blood-stained cloak to the fire, recalling how Luke had told her the color would never fade. At least the fabric remains in good condition, suffering from no major tears.

Rey hears a whimper from the fireplace. She finds Chewie sitting up on his haunches, tail wagging tentatively. She walks over to the fireplace, smiling at him, and takes his head into her hands. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to. I won't tell." With Han gone, in truth, a hermit’s abode may suit him well.

The door opens and shuts behind her. The smile melts from Rey’s face.

"Do you even know your way back to the Ilenium Settlement from here?" Luke grumbles.

"I'll find my own way." _It seems I always do._

He crosses his arms over his chest. "You're a rude girl, I'll give you that. But when I offered my home to you, I meant it."

"No.” If Luke is surprised by the steel in her voice, he does not let on. “I've already been gone long enough. They're running out of time."

"You're going to die out there. He'll catch you as soon as you take a step outside the heart tree's roots."

Rey finally spins around to glare at him. "And what do you care?"

They only stare at each other. Rey finds her reservoirs filled to the brink with a rage as red as the wood crackling in the hearth but Luke remains his usual expressionless self. She is almost envious of such self-control. Though when their stalemate breaks, it is not in the way she anticipates. “Three lessons. No more.”

She blinks. “What?" A sudden smile splits across her lips, premature in her excitement.

“Stop,” Luke retorts at the sight of it. “I will give you three lessons on why Hunters should remain a dying breed. It’s time you understand that the forest is better off without us."

Rey appraises him warily. “Whatever you say, master.”

“I think I see now,” Luke says just as mildly, “why Leia sent _you._ ”

* * *

Her stories from infancy tell of a witch to the north, the Snow Queen, who brings them storms in the winter and freezes children who misbehave. For all Rey knows, the queen might have killed herself in one story or another. It’s been so long since she has heard the tale properly.

In her dream, Rey is the Snow Queen brought to life. Her shift is paler than the moon. Snowflakes stick to her hair like a crown, to her eyelashes, and to her lips until they turn blue. Her skin is so numb and she should be dead. Yet she runs anyway, _very_ much alive.

Rey doesn’t turn around to look behind her, doesn’t need to. She recognizes the heavy footfall trailing in her wake, knows it belongs to _him._ He’ll tear her apart if he catches her. There’s no sword to protect her this time.

But in the same way their skirmish ended in real life, there is an end to this dream too that involves a cliff. Rey reaches it, not quite sure why she is so surprised. She dares a look over the edge. A gaping chasm greets her, no canopy to break her fall.

Rey has to wonder if death at a wolf’s jaws is worse. Not that Kylo Ren lets her wonder for long.

An unnatural force grips her as if he has learned from his previous mistake. She won’t be fortunate to fall off a cliff this time, even one guaranteed to send her into oblivion.

Rey turns around slowly. “You… you’re not supposed to be here.”

She expects to see him as a wolf but finds the man instead – _clothed_ this time – clenching his fingers. As if to hold her in place. “You’re the one who trespassed into the dark forest, girl.”

A single finger beckons her forward and Rey moves without telling herself to do so. Straight into the arms of a monster. Dream or no, she has certainly lost her mind.

“It’s only right that I trespass here out of spite,” he murmurs in that velvet voice of his. “That is the power the full moon gives me.”

Her jaw clenches. Rey tries to wriggle her way out of his hold. When that doesn’t work, she glares daggers at him. “Get out of my head.”

“I mean no harm,” Kylo Ren says with a smile and she knows it must be a lie. He circles her with a predator’s intent. “Consider me a guest.”

In his shadow, the outline of a wolf paces instead.

For a moment they can only stare at each other. Rey had initially thought those eyes dark and soulless during their chase through the forest. Now she finds them rimmed by amber, flecked with spots of green. She'd still pluck them out if she could. But perhaps keep them in a jar by her bed like a hard-won trophy.

“You still want to kill me,” he remarks in observation.

Rey snorts. “That happens when you’re being hunted by a creature through the woods.”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. “The dark forest belongs to me. Yes, I take offense to anyone who trespasses through it.” If they weren’t already so well acquainted, Rey might think him a haughty prince prattling on about law and order. “Especially human scavengers who seek to drain its soil and burn down whatever is not suitable for consumption. Murderers, traitors, and thieves.”

She shakes her head. “We have lived on our lands for centuries—”

“The dark forest has been here since the dawn of time,” Kylo Ren snaps. “If I have anything to say of it, the dark forest will continue to exist for many eons yet once all your kind has perished.”

Rey has no idea what to say to that so she says nothing at all. She simply closes her eyes and attempts to compose herself.

“Who sent you on this failed quest?” Her eyes snap open. “An orphaned girl is far from an experienced Hunter.”

“How—”

“Some thoughts are easier to glean than others,” he interjects. “It was Leia Organa, wasn’t it? She truly must be desperate then.”

Rey doubles down, forces herself to project nothing but a blank slate. Whatever Kylo knows, Snoke will know, and that could spell disaster for her and everyone within the Ilenium Settlement.

Kylo Ren chuckles. “Oh no, that won’t work with me.” Like taking a hammer to the temple, he attempts to pry his way inside once more but it is remarkably less graceful than it had been before. “As I said, girl. You need a teacher before you hope to stand against my ilk.”

“Well thanks to you, I have one,” she blurts out before cursing her thoughtless tongue.

He raises an eyebrow. “Luke. You found him.” His posture relaxes, so self-assured. “With the map, no doubt. You're going to show it to me.”

Despite the cold, sweat erupts on the back of Rey’s neck. “I’m not giving you anything.”

“We’ll see.” Kylo Ren takes a step closer – _too_ close. As if he were a friend. Or a lover. His eyes trace her lips, perhaps visualizing the exact words he wants to hear from them. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

“We’ll see,” she says by way of challenge, oblivious to her reddening cheeks and the snowflakes melting in her hair.

“I suppose we will,” he tells her in that smug tone once again. His hand rises up to touch her face.

Rey feels the entire world jolt and turn upside down. A presence trickles into her mind, clearly foreign. _Him._

She pushes against it, though the intruder is as slippery as an eel, made harder by the fact that physical resistance is entirely impossible. Brushing aside her awkward attempts to keep him out is almost _too_ easy.

Kylo Ren skims another thought from her mind, as easy as plucking a feather from a chicken. “You’re so lonely,” he murmurs. “So afraid to leave.” A smirk tugs at his lips. “Desperate to sleep, another night in the cold orphanage, you dream of the forest. Yes, I see it now. I see the stream.”

A tear rolls down her cheek.

“And Han Solo.” Ren side-steps as if in search of a new angle with which to skewer her. “He felt like the father you never had. Well, no need to wonder what would have been. In the end, he would have disappointed you. You’re welcome.”

At the mention of Han, her anger rises as suddenly as a wildfire. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, monster—”

Ren stumbles slightly, thrown off balance from her sudden outburst. “I don’t? How little you know—”

_GET – OUT – OF – MY – HEAD!_

Her bottled rage fractures out like a bolt of lightning. Striking the intrusion – and striking Kylo Ren too. He jumps back a few feet, landing crouched like a savage.

Sneering, he raises a hand to her again for another attack – but a new barrier stops him cold. Instead, he feels _her presence_ spear into his mind.

“And you,” she growls to his horror. “You’re _afraid._ That you will never be as strong as _Darth Vader!_ ”

His entire skin shudders, the wolf underneath ready to burst out at any minute. Rey knows nothing of the name she uttered, only that it has struck such fear into him she almost doesn’t know what to do.

“Get out,” they murmur in unison and the snow beneath them explodes.

* * *

Rey wakes with a start. She finds Luke standing over her pallet on the floor, his face haunting in the moonlight. For a moment, she catches a glimpse of Kylo Ren.

“At dawn,” he says, “we teach you to ignore such childish attacks.”


	3. Beginnings of Corruption

The chase begins anew.

Longer than their first game of cat and mouse, her lungs burn past the point of typical exertion. Every muscle screams at her to cease but she cannot. Run or die, the only mantra she can recognize.

Her sense of self returns when the terrain changes, part blistering ice, part prickly thorns. Pain snaps her out of her panic, ironically enough. A long slice along the bottom of her foot leaves blood trailing in her wake. A death sentence for prey such as her.

And yet… no paws crunch in the snow behind her. Somehow, she has lost him.

Rey stops to scramble for breath. In truth, she should celebrate – she outwitted the predator once again, has lived to see another day – but she cannot understand why she finds such a thing more disappointing than anything else.

_Where is he?_

She whirls around but the only silhouettes she finds are the frost-covered trees, hundreds wedged so closely together and barely visible in the mist. In truth, no one knows how far the dark forest stretches. No one has dared to find out.

It takes her a moment to realize her surroundings are all too familiar. Lit by the full moon, a break in the trees reveals the clearing and the ravine on the other side. The planks of an infamous rickety bridge clack together in the breeze, an ominous lullaby.

Rey forces herself not to shake as she steps forward to peer through the thicket.

At the center of the clearing, she finds Han.

In a great deluge, memories rush back to her. The cloud passing over the moon, shrouding them all in the darkness. The pain and betrayal on her mentor’s face. Flashes of claws and teeth.

The Han resting in the clearing is already dead. The pallor of his skin matches the snow and his eyes gaze up at the night sky unseeing. Peaceful enough if he were alone.

The black monster stands over him.

Crimson eyes pin her in place, two beacons slicing through the darkness. Piercing her soul as readily as his teeth crunch through Han’s ribcage. Blood splatters in the frenzied search for his heart. 

“Your dreams are strange,” Rey whips around behind her, coming face to face with Kylo Ren – man, once again. “We both know it didn’t happen that way.”

A part of her knows that, of course, but she still reels from the truth of the matter: Han is dead because of him. “You’re going to pay for what you did, murderous snake!”

His guarded eyes glance past her, but where she saw Han’s devoured carcass there is nothing but snow. Not even a stain of red. “Where are you?” he says with blatant disregard for her initial outburst. “I can’t tell. You seem… far away. But if you had left the forest I would know.”

“You lost,” she spits. “I found Luke Skywalker and he’s going to destroy you.”

He snorts at that as if the very idea is ridiculous. His eyes narrow. “You’re in the heart tree. Aren’t you?”

Rey stiffens, grasping for a sword not at her side. Did her dreams not think to arm her?

Kylo Ren makes no move forward. “Don’t worry. If you’re with Luke, he’ll eat your heart out before I do.”

She sputters, out of fear more than anything, “He’s not like you.” It certainly feels true when she says it. While Luke is eccentric at best, he cannot match the dangerous aura she senses every time she is around Ren. A _monster’s_ aura. Something decidedly not mortal.

“No,” Kylo agrees, a spark of dark humor causing his eyes to alight, “he’s worse.”

* * *

Rey scans the gray sky for any hint of rain, though she knows Luke will not be deterred by something as trivial as the weather.

“Where are we going?” She hops over a tangle of shrubbery with a child’s excitement. “Some secret training ground? Is that where you keep your weapons?”

“I have no need for weapons,” Luke says rather mildly, no doubt used to her bouts of ridiculous questioning after a week has come and gone. “No harm will come to those within radius of the heart tree’s roots.”

Her eyes snap to the ground. “But… how do you know once you’ve stepped outside them?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” he muses. “I imagine Kylo Ren will be there to tear you limb from limb.”

Rey purses her lips. “That’s not funny.”

“Hm, still a touchy subject, I see.”

Luke leads them further in search of some arbitrary marker. Only then does she contemplate whether the old man _has_ lost his mind after all these years of solitude. The more she thinks about it, the more likely it seems.

He comes to a standstill in what must be the fifth clearing they’ve ventured through. It looks like all the others – a sea of yellow and white flowers floating in the breeze, grass high enough to brush against her knees.

“Sit here, legs crossed.”

She drops to the ground, not necessarily eager to begin their lesson, but certainly relieved that she can give her taxed legs a rest. 

Luke crouches down next to her, picking a single flower and twirling it between his hands. He only speaks, she thinks, when her impatience becomes palpable. “What do you know of the forest, Rey?”

“It’s… an evil place,” she manages, her head swiveling from side to side to survey the trees again. Just in case. “No one within the Settlement can venture into it without explicit permission from Leia. You can get lost, run into horrifying creatures. The few that do survive never come back the same.”

His mustache twitches. “And yet you went into the forest yourself.” Luke cocks his head to the side. “You survived. You’re somewhat sane, I hope?”

Her eyebrows furrow. “What’s your point?”

“What led you to this tree? To me?” he asks. “You said so yourself that you had lost the map on the way here.”

 _So kind of you to remind me._ “Yes, I… saw Chewie’s tracks. Then the stream.”

“So?” he prompts. “What led you here?”

“The… forest I suppose?” she adds with a hint of frustration, unable to understand exactly what sort of angle Luke is reaching for.

He tries a new tactic. “And where does the water from the village come from? The game?”

“The forest,” she admits.

“Then is it really such a bad place?”

She opens her mouth again, but no words come out initially. Rey takes a deep breath. “I… suppose not.”

“What you hear of the forest comes from what people have told you. You yourself have never stepped foot in it until recently. Your fear stemmed from something you have never seen before, something you never took the time to understand.”

Gently, he sets down the flower in his hands. He scratches loose a handful of dirt, burying it before speaking again. “I don’t blame you for that. It’s only human nature to vilify the unknown.”

“But it is dangerous,” she insists, her eyes still on the buried flower. “Full of creatures that want to do harm.” Now that she _had_ experienced firsthand.

“But does the forest itself want to harm you?” Luke presses. Naturally, she doesn’t have an answer for that. “Close your eyes.”

Her initial reaction is to chide him in how trivial this all seems. After all, Luke had promised lessons – not a meditation circle in the middle of nowhere.

With the ghost of a smile on his lips, he closes his eyes without waiting for her to follow. “Just… breathe. Reach out with your heart, one living force to another.”

Without any other choice, Rey does as she is told.

The master takes her hand into his own rough and calloused ones, pressing them firmly against the dirt. The ground is moist from the melted morning frost but not sticky, at least. “Tell me. What do you see?”

Darkness.

Everywhere.

And not because her sight has been obscured. Even from behind shut eyelids, she can still envision the tree line surrounding them. The dark forest has always been an appropriate name for this place – the canopy shrouding everything for miles on end, a haven for shadows that move of their own accord.

And yet… light still streams in through gaps in the trees. Illuminating the stream, pouring life into the vegetation. The same vegetation hiding death beneath the soil, the remains of all the creatures of the past to grace the forest floor but regenerating new life as well.

“A…balance.”

For once, Luke’s voice hums with approval. Her gut tightens at the sound. “Balance, yes. There’s good and evil in every man, and in the forest also. One cannot exist without the other.”

The thicket rustles all around her. Her hand tightens into a fist.

“A deer,” Luke assures her. _Harmless._ “You’re terrified of the creatures in the dark, but know the truth when they come into the light, don’t you?”

Wordlessly, Rey nods. Yes, she can see them in her mind’s eye now. A doe with large brown eyes, the fawn scurrying at her side. 

His hushed voice continues on. “The Hunters never could. It is why they failed at rooting all evil from the forest – they could not discern the light from the dark.”

“They are one.” Her own voice, so melancholy, so contemplative, surprises her.

“Yes. You can feel that through the roots, can you not? You can understand this?”

The roots. She did not see them when they entered the clearing, hadn’t been persuaded by Luke’s assurances that they were still safe within the heart tree’s radius. The energy flowing through her fingers, however, is no lie. They still exist there beneath the soil, just barely out of reach. “Yes.”

“The light is not something for a huntsman to defend,” Luke affirms, sliding in his first lesson like a doting mother might slide a vegetable onto her dinner plate. “That is how it becomes corrupted in the first place.”

But Rey does not mind the master’s heavy-handed message. In a moment that seems both eternal and minute, peace washes away her fears like a flame devours a stick one lick at a time.

“But there’s something else,” she says after a time, when that little flame has burnt out and all she feels is cold. Her nails dig into the dirt and her mind digs deeper, bewildered. The root beneath her has a conscience, that much is clear, and it wishes to lead her somewhere.

“Just at the edge of the roots,” Rey can interpret of the whirlwind of flashes she receives in her mind’s eyes. A place—”

“The heart tree is light,” Luke interjects, though where there should be confidence, she senses a twinge of concern. “Where there is light, death follows.”

The root’s lifeforce dies off, spitting her out in an unknown part of the forest where she hears no birds chirping, no small mice rustling. Only a black crater at her feet, who knows how deep.

“No. It’s…” Hard to explain. Separate from the necessary death between the plant roots, the natural cycle of a body being broken down and reused for sustenance. This breaks the cycle, this is death for death’s sake. “ _Rotten_. It’s… calling me?”

Yes. The longer she peers into the hole, the more she sees. Worms crawling within, twitching in unnatural rhythms and a strange shade of gray. Neither dead nor alive. A gateway into another existence.

“Resist it, Rey,” she hears the huntsman through some vague fog. But she cannot. Something within pulses like a faint heartbeat, another life onto itself. She reaches her hands towards it.

Her entire body, the ground beneath her, shakes.

“ _REY_!”

Luke.

Luke is the one who shakes her back into this world, and she gasps as if breaking through the surface of a lake.

He draws his hand back as if he had been burned. “You went straight to the source.” His mouth sets into a thin line. “Why am I not surprised?”

Rey clutches her chest in an attempt to still her racing heart. “No, I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” she musters. “At the village. It’s what’s been killing the crops, poisoning the water too.” She shakes her head, regaining her threads of consciousness. “What is it?”

Luke’s mustache twitches. “There are times the dark is warped for… unnatural magicks.” He pauses and she knows he is debating how much to tell her. “The heart tree was attacked deliberately there.”

“Snoke?” Rey has heard many stories and those surrounding the sorcerer are the worst of all. No one knows for sure from whence he came – some speak of him as the son of a demon or a changeling left behind from the Fair Folk who once populated these lands. Nor do they know where he resides. Only that those who come from the deepest parts of the forest, kicking and screaming, have his name on their lips when they expire within a week’s time.

He only gives a tentative nod. “It’s fine. As I said, no one can do us harm here.” Though it does not escape her note that Luke does not seem so convinced.

“Yes,” Rey retorts, “well there’s no heart tree back at the Ilenium Settlement. Nothing to protect us there. That’s why we need you.”

“Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?” he snaps. “Did you see the Settlement at all when you passed through the roots?”

Rey need not think hard. The Ilenium Settlement is a large village, easily heard from miles off when approaching on horseback. She shakes her head.

“And do you think this was a mistake?” he says even harsher. “Humans were the ones that burned those roots long ago. It has been closed off, separated.”

She frowns. “But why?”

The master only moves to stand. “Who’s to say? We spin our little web of civilization and think ourselves safe from the forest’s influence, apart from the outside. We’re wrong, of course – and any settlement reflecting such sentiment is doomed from the start.”

The lack of hope in his voice, the willingness to accept things as they are – not as they _could_ be – bothers her to the core. Luke had been a hero once, had brought hope to hundreds of wayward souls just like her. “But I saw a balance,” she protests vehemently. “Why can’t we have both?”

“It’s just not the way,” he dismisses, though with a knowing gaze. “At least, not for a Hunter. The creed dictates that there is no such thing as balance, only a never-ending war between good and evil. The problem is, we can never agree on what defines good and what defines evil.”

Rey has no patience for such theological discussions nor for a creed she has never read. None of that will help her in what she seeks to accomplish. “What about your stance?” she challenges instead, hoping he will take the bait.

“I am the product of my upbringing, Rey,” Luke says as if it should be obvious. He sighs. “I can only hope that such a philosophy dies with me.”

* * *

Rey leaves the heart tree before dawn. Before Luke can rise from his bed and bombard her with an endless stream of questions. Though, in truth, she doubts he cares where she ventures to in the early hours of the morn.

For once, she does not feel lost traversing the woods without a map. The root had already provided her with one, searing her intended path onto the backs of her eyelids.

Rey charges through the forest with purpose, though her gaze lingers on the dew evaporating from the morning sun, whirls of mist rising from the half-frozen ground. She would have danced it in it as a child, pretending the phenomenon caused by some sort of fae magic. It calls to her longing for simpler days before her life as an orphan, existing in a world tinged in light, rosy hues.

Memories buried.

She cannot recall her parents’ faces, nor the hobble they shared. Only promises of _we’ll come back soon_ , _darling_ , never to be fulfilled. And though she eventually found a new home in the Organa-Solo household, the sting of abandonment remains.

A foul smell on the wind stems halts her wandering. She has arrived.

The clearing that greets her is not like the others she and Luke had trampled through yesterday. Its margins create a perfect circle, a sign of abnormality in such a wilderness. Nothing that could have been created by an ancient tree succumbing to disease, a bolt of lightning, or seasonal wildfires. The other clearings had shown signs of life, filled with grasslands and birds singing at all hours of the day.

No life grows here. A thin layer of soil covers a bed of gravel drained of all moisture. At its center, she sees the gaping hole from her vision. 

Sweat breaks out on the back of her neck. She should have listened to Luke and left this matter alone, but it is too late to turn back now.

A faint buzzing on the wind beckons her closer. Rey obliges, curious hand outstretched.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She swallows a scream and frees the sword from her scabbard.

Kylo Ren peers at her from a break in the trees, customary dark waistcoat melting with the shadows. She wonders how long he has been standing there. Watching her.

In her dreams, he never seemed real. It was easy to glean over the planes of his face, the details in his dressings. After all, in the flesh, she had only met him as a massive wolf hellbent on killing her. Apart from the moment they had clashed in the snow and he had morphed before her eyes, bare as the day he was born.

The conjured image paints her cheeks red. If Kylo Ren notices, he does not let on. He studies their surroundings, attempting to solve a complex problem Rey is not privy to, yet expecting her help all the same. _The nerve._

Naturally, he speaks first. “It called you here too. Why is the forest connecting us?”

She grounds herself, feeling the heart tree’s essence beneath her. “I’m still within the roots. You can’t touch me here,” Rey bites back. “I’m safe.”

He cocks his head. “For someone who’s safe, you’re awfully afraid.”

His words send a jolt through her, so similar to the ones Luke had told her the day before. Even in human flesh, Kylo Ren moves like a wolf – though standing tall, his head bows forward slightly in interest. A tug at the corner of his lips illudes to a grin or a sneer, warping the red line splitting down the right side of his face.

In her dreamscape, he had never come to her with the scar – so bright and puckered, still fresh from their battle. It must have itched terribly, driving him mad enough to tear the forming scabs free with his claws. Had his thoughts strayed towards her in that time, knowing Rey had left such a visible mark on him for the world to see?

She doesn’t know why that gives her such satisfaction. Her gaze lingers a moment too long.

“Appreciating your artwork?” Kylo Ren murmurs.

Rey does not bristle as is her first instinct. _Breathe,_ she chants to herself. _Just breathe._

A cloud shifts, illuminating the clearing.

He steps out from the tree line, but she remains calm. The light gives her strength. The wolf does not seem as threatening as he had before. Another callback to Luke’s first lesson, and though she is not brave enough to test out the theory for herself, a creature like Kylo Ren preys on her fear. She refuses to give him such satisfaction.

Instead, Rey mulls over the previous words he said to her. “What do you mean it called you here?”

He appraises her in silence. Though she isn’t sure what at all there is to contemplate. “If you don’t realize by now that the dark forest has a mind of its own,” he says finally, “then Luke Skywalker has failed you as a teacher.”

Kylo’s resulting look of disappointment allows her rage to stew once again. _You need a teacher,_ his growl from long ago echoes in her mind. _I can teach you the ways of the forest!_

Rey grits her teeth. “And what could you possibly know about Luke Skywalker?”

In truth, she has no reason to defend the hermit of the heart tree. Luke has not been exactly kind to Rey in her brief stay with him, nor has he been very forthcoming on teaching her the ways of a huntsman, but he was still Leia’s brother. Family _._

Kylo Ren’s reaction she does not expect. He throws his head back and laughs, the sound jarring against the eerie calm of this strange place. “Has he told you about me?”

Rey grits her teeth. “I know everything I need to know about you.”

“You do?” He takes another step forward. Kylo does not hesitate from the proximity of her sword as Rey had hoped. Still, she assures herself that she is safe. He can do her no harm here. “Ah, you do. You have that look in your eyes from the night we first met. When you sliced open my face.”

He seems almost _proud_ of her as he says this, but Rey must convince herself that this cannot be the case. She lifts her chin in stark defiance. “All evil must perish by the sword one day.”

Her words strike a chord. Kylo’s mood shifts once more, his lip curling to reveal the same teeth that had sliced into Han. “If there is an evil that exists within this forest – it is _him._ ”

The conviction in his voice leaves her stuttering. It’s a miracle Rey can even respond at all. “Even if I believed that to be true, why would do this to the heart tree?” In fact, harming the dark forest seems antithetical to all his talk of protecting it in the first place. “Have you no shame?”

He looks taken aback by her words, another thing she does not expect. “I had nothing to do with this.”

“That’s a lie,” Rey says regardless, despite uncertainty curling in the pit of her stomach. “I’ve seen this before. The residue of your master.”

Kylo glances to the rot again, schooling his expression into neutrality. “The wizard is wise. A true friend of the forest,” he says quietly, though it rings of reassurance for himself more than anything.

Rey cannot be sure of the cogs turning in his head – but even if she did believe him, his being kept in the dark by Snoke does not bode well for her.

“Go home, mortal,” Kylo Ren tells her finally, though it is he who turns away from her and the clearing, slinking back into the shadows like a true beast of the forest. 


	4. Reynard and Isengrin

The fox toes the sacred roots with a crooked smile, a flash of red against the snowy riverbank. Though he usually creeps through the underbrush with great care, there is no need to hide his presence now. For it is the heart tree who should tremble with fear at the sight of him.

His left paw, tainted black as if smeared with ink, scuffs only the edge of the root. Plant matter sizzles beneath his touch, filling the air with the scent of its degradation. If trees could scream Hux wonders of the sound it would make now.

 _No matter._ Long has the heart tree denied him entry into its innermost sanctum to reclaim the powers long lost to him. May his vengeance cut just as deep.

The last of the poison disappears from his paw and Hux mourns its loss.

Once, his bloodline had been a feared presence of the forest, worshipped as gods by humans and lowly spirits alike. His powers had known no bounds, gifting him worship in the most delectable of ways: pious acolytes so eager to disrobe at his command, fresh offerings of unwanted children to curry his favor.

Now, he craves even a lick of magic from shadows and demon-spawn. The world has changed much in his lifetime. Now, a fox can hardly roam the forest without glancing over his shoulder.

Prone to nerves, he puts as much distance between him and the heart tree’s border as possible. If he is discovered… _No._ Hux banishes the thought. He is not as accustomed to failure as his compatriot.

By twilight, the ground slopes beneath his sore paws into a rocky bank. He is still far from his lair, the fox, but he looks longingly at the sluggish, black stream. His throat parches in the afterthought of such a long trek.

Hux scans the forest, though he cannot see far with night fast approaching and no moon to greet the sky. Should he take a drink, he must do so quickly. He hobbles down the rocky slope with care, wishing neither a twisted ankle nor a slip on the rocks to give away his location, before pausing on the bank. His ears flicker at every sound, still wary.

_It is now or never._

Hux bends his head for a drink, gaze still focused straight ahead. The shadows beckon him as the cool water rushes down his throat. The prickling sensation of ice water numbs his teeth, his skull. Perhaps that is why it takes him too long to realize that the shadows harbor his enemy. In the darkness of the treeline, red eyes stare back at him.

Hux bolts back up the steep bank. A crash behind him, though, signals that the monster has crossed the stream in a single leap. 

_“_ This isn’t _funny_!” Hux puffs through strangled breaths, contorting his body through gnarled underbrush. A thicket that the wolf chasing him simply plows on through in a measure of brute strength.

His spine whips like the wind as he pushes his body to the point of exertion, flying over meadowed glens, feet hardly a whisper on the ground. Hux throws himself into the trees again, hoping that his weaving between the trunks will slow the beast down.

But he has never encountered an adversary as brutal as Kylo Ren.

A hard slap of a paw sends him cratering into a fallen log. He does not get to his feet on his own. Teeth snatch him up by the scruff.

“You injured the heart tree,” he hears from a gruff voice all too familiar. “With what power?”

Hux sneers. “Ah, so the wolf finally deigns to speak to the lowly fox? What a gift.”

It seems, however, as though Kylo Ren is not in the mood for small talk. He shakes Hux until the fox froths from the mouth.

Ren's jaws unlock and the other forest spirit puddles to the ground, boneless. “Speak, vermin.”

“It has been…” Hux hacks a glob of spit at Ren’s paws. “…a long time since you have seen the master. I wonder why that is?”

To that, the wolf does not respond. He bares his teeth, glinting white like the snowy landscape.

The fox swallows the lump in his throat. “You will find that his powers have grown exponentially. He lent me a drop, knowing I would be the only one to lull the heart tree into complacency.”

It was the design of his very nature, after all. A spirit of deceit and false promises, so powerful in that regard, only to be reduced to a wizard’s rabid cur.

“Of course.” Ren paws at the ground, frustratingly so. “You have always lacked honor.”

Hux bristles. “Yes. Unlike the prideful, wanton creature before me, I intend to survive Snoke’s dominion over the forest just as a fox must withstand the change of the seasons.” He stands to shake the frost and dirt from his fur. “Once, I thought our goals were aligned.”

“They are, but to destroy the heart tree is to destroy the forest altogether.” His long snout wrinkles with displeasure. “We agreed no harm would come to it.”

“Plans change,” the fox insists with a snarl. “We must adapt.”

The wolf sneers once again. “That was not the agreement.”

 _Sentimental fool._ His hackles rise. “Careful Ren, that your personal feelings do not intervene with the will of—”

A rustling wind silences the forest in a single stroke. The fox and the wolf glare at each other, their tempers flaring as dangerously as a wildfire.

_Come._

Hux hisses at the summons. “You _idiot_.”

* * *

With no words shared between them, they tread the forest together until the soil beneath their paws turns to mud. The warm air tinges itself a putrid green, and the vegetation warps into waterlogged trees and knotted vines. Croaking frogs ring out like a choir of dying men, signaling their arrival.

Not that they could have come upon their master otherwise.

The silhouette of a pillar rises out of the fog – the husk of an ancient, petrified tree surrounded by an island of death. Glittering black mushrooms call attention to the graveyard promising a sweet death should the wolf ever be bold enough to accept. Between them, littered in a radius around the tree, lie bones in varying stages of decay – some large, some small, though the collection overwhelmingly human.

Kylo himself had brought most of them to supplement his master’s unnatural gifts, Hux as well, and so had the assortment of other monsters under Snoke’s command.

His gaze drifts to the skull lying in solitude at the base of the tree. His first sacrifice, the only grave marker in this horrific garden.

A wolf’s skull. _Vader._

Kylo Ren expects to see his master standing up on the banks of the island or creep out from the dead tree’s shade. There is no sign of him to be had. Save for himself and Hux, this part of the forest seems as abandoned as ever. 

A fire winks into existence.

“Kneel.”

He whips around in horror, scrutinizing the petrified tree at greater length. His master has carved himself a seat upon it, surveying the forest spirits as Kylo had stalked Hux not long ago – with a predator’s intent.

Both wolf and fox bow their heads in respect. Yet he cannot help but look up for a glimpse at the horror his master has wrought.

Though Snoke has never been a creature to look upon. Little more than an animated corpse, skin sallow enough to sport a translucent tinge hangs from the wizard’s warped skeleton. In his mercy, Ren recalls putting down animals less emaciated. But someone had already beaten the wolf to it – he can never ignore the wizard’s defining trait: a half-crushed skull to match the scar on Snoke's forehead of a strike so deep it would have cut a regular man in half.

It was this remnant of an awry assassination that had bonded Snoke and Kylo Ren together. But now, he fears his master has gone too far.

“You are unsettled by my appearance, Kylo Ren.”

And he is right to be. Gray roots have sprung from the petrified tree, spearing right through the wizard and curling around his body beneath rotted robes like a horde of snakes.

He schools both his expression and his thoughts into neutrality. “No, master. I was simply… not aware of these recent developments.”

By his side, Hux scoffs.

“I had grown tired of your failed attempts to track down Skywalker,” Snoke says as if it is a proper response for desecrating his body so. “And it appears he has been under our noses this entire time.”

To Ren, the fox returns a jagged smile and an accompanying retort. “Our new intruder led us right to him.”

The girl.

He wants to blame her for upending his entire world, yet he knows not all of this is her doing. A part of Kylo has always known Luke’s location, despite scouring miles of the dark forest, raiding dozens of human villages in search of the master and with no luck. Only the heart tree resisted his presence so that he could not search those stretches of forest properly. A part of Kylo Ren had protested, of course, unsure what offense he had wrought upon the heart tree, but he had succumbed to its will as he had in all things.

“As I recall,” Hux continues, “it was _Ren_ who told us the implausibility of the heart tree shielding this Hunter who has never once been a friend of the forest.” He sniffs. “No matter. Soon, under your guidance, master, we shall have Skywalker in our midst and put an end to this resistance.”

Snoke peers at the fox with a devious grin. “You were successful in your task, I take it?”

The fox nods dutifully, so eager to please. It makes the wolf’s stomach turn.

The wizard’s withering glare returns to Ren. “And you, my young apprentice? Have you anything to show for yourself?”

Of course not. His task had been to find and kill Skywalker, but he had encountered the ferocious girl instead.

_Rey._

He had thought nothing of her at first – only a nuisance trailing in the wake of Han Solo. Another pair of bones for Snoke to pilfer of any magical residue. Then she had picked up the saber and he saw her for the first time. _Truly_ saw her. And she had split his face as water splits the ground. Stoking the seed of his infatuation.

Ren can still picture her in his mind’s eye: standing tall amongst the snow, pink lips curled into the most fearsome of snarls. Otherworldly.

In a moment that seemed to last an eternity, Kylo Ren had been vulnerable, so _painfully_ mortal. And after years of no one seeing his human face, he had not only revealed himself, but had also seen his own wild ways mirrored in another. He still wonders what marvel would have occurred had she not tumbled from the cliff. Would their battle have commenced? Or would it have evolved into something else entirely?

Snoke regards Kylo Ren with an unnatural stillness, awaiting an answer still.

His tongue feels leaden. His only hope lies in steering the conversation away from his failures and towards the matter that has plagued his mind since the beginning of this summons. “The heart tree—"

“Has overstayed its welcome,” Snoke interrupts with such swift interjection, no doubt expecting such resistance from his apprentice. “The time has come to do away with it. Once I become the new heart tree, we will put an end to the human filth that has plagued these woods.”

The wolf skims his master’s form once more with a barely concealed rage. “We agreed that no harm would come to the forest.” His words slip from between gritted teeth. “We have no idea of the unintended consequences this transfer of power will bring about.”

At worst, the entirety of this forest will rot and Ren’s legacy will come to a quick and brutal end. Snoke _must_ understand. Kylo must _make him understand._

The master reclines into his seat, almost bored, and peers at him with a most unusual smile. “The forest is a whirl with various rumors, Kylo Ren,” his master deflects. “I am told that my mighty compatriot was bested… by a dog and a girl who had never once held a saber.”

 _No rumors._ He casts his murderous glare at Hux once again. This is not the first time he has played the spy for their master. 

“Come closer.”

Kylo hesitates, not out of shame, but in anticipation of Snoke’s derision. For the first time in years, he had found a worthy opponent. The girl had been the _only_ one to best him since his turning. And, in a way, he feels possessive of the mark on his face that now ties their fates together.

Nevertheless, Snoke has never taken no for an answer. “I said: _come closer._ ” An invisible grip pulls his giant body from the shadows and into the rancid water. Baring his face to his master’s scrutiny.

Snoke’s thin, wrinkled lips set into a firm line. With a silent gesture, he dismisses Hux. The fox beelines for the underbrush, disappearing out of sight.

“So, it is true. The girl defeated _you_.” Snoke shakes his head and the disappointment hits the wolf like a well-sharpened blade. “When we first crossed paths, I saw what all masters live to see in their pupils: raw, untamed power. Now, I fear I was mistaken.”

Kylo Ren bristles. “I have always done as you asked. I have kept up my barrage of the human villages, I killed all who have stood in my way.”

“Including Han Solo, so the forest tells me,” Snoke murmurs in a tone that does not insinuate praise. After all, Kylo had not brought back the man’s bones for the wizard to feast upon. “And how have you faired since such a deed?”

Every muscle in his body tenses. “He meant nothing to me.”

The ground beneath him rumbles. “You dare lie to my face? I have heard your howls for miles on end! Smelled your sorrow on the wind!” Kylo withdraws further in on himself, an animal cornered. His master does not relent. “Skywalker still lives because of your failures. He has taken on this new apprentice, just as I warned you he would! Perhaps I _was_ remiss in taking you under my tutelage. You are too _weak_ to follow in Vader’s footsteps!”

Something within him snaps. He launches himself at Snoke, fangs flashing in the firelight.

A root strikes him down before he can hurdle close. He falls into the pile of bones, many cracking beneath his weight. He dares not to rise and challenge his master again, not to even breathe. 

“You are unworthy of the mantle of your predecessor and yet it is _my_ loyalty to the cause you wish to question?” Snoke spits. The wolf accepts these words like another lash. “I am the only one who accepts you as you are, Ren. Never forget this.”

Misery settles deep in his heart, but Kylo knows a monster of his ilk deserves this maltreatment. It is the only way for him to become who he was meant to be. 

“Get out of my sight.” Snoke snuffs out the flame, soulless black eyes the last thing Ren sees. “Do not return until you have killed Skywalker or you will face the consequences.”


End file.
